“My wife [Anne Hearst] gets sort of amazed when I express nostalgia for an era when crack vials were crackling underfoot like acorns in the forest and graffiti covered every surface of the city almost literally,” he said during a talk on his latest book, “Bright, Precious Days,” at Barnes & Noble in Union Square on Tuesday. “But there was an energy there that may not be as crackling today. Sometimes I miss it. I don’t miss my apartment being broken into all the time, or getting mugged. But it was an interesting time.”

He continued, “I guess we live in interesting times as well, now, which is a bit of a curse. I don’t know if I have the heart to write about this election.”

McInerney said that now “we are living in a shinier, more prosperous and less diverse island with each passing year,” and that he is “glad [he] got to see it in its grittier incarnations.”